Romney Reflects On Obama's Iowa Victory
BEDFORD, N.H. -- Mitt Romney has spent the past couple of days trying to portray himself as a vibrant new face, in contrast to John McCain, whom the former Massachusetts governor says is a Washington politician whose time has come and gone. At a house party here this morning, Romney turned to the result of Iowa's Democratic caucuses as evidence that the entire country wants to move in a new direction.
"On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton was talking about her years of experience — how she'd use that experience to change Washington," Romney said. "She lost to the new guy. People want to see real change. They do not want to see the same faces just in different chairs."
For months, Romney's primary Democratic punching bag was Clinton, but after Barack Obama's big win in Iowa, Romney now makes the argument that he is the best Republican to match up against the Illinois senator.
"And we cannot afford Barack Obama as the next president," Romney said at a town hall this morning in Derry. "He's a very nice fellow and he's a well-spoken fellow, but he's never done it. It's one thing to say it. It's another thing to do it."
The revamped message of change that Romney is pushing coincides with an effort to highlight his business resume and managing skills. In his response to a question about cultivating qualified foreign service officers, Romney sounded like a CEO giving a top to bottom review of the way the United States carries out its foreign policy.
"We haven't reorganized government, well, ever," Romney said. "We haven't said, 'Look, how do we interact with the world?'"
Romney went on to criticize the State Department's policy of training diplomats in one language and then moving them off to a different corner of the world.
"I would have an individual — an envoy — or undersecretary responsible for each major region of the world, reporting either directly to me or down the line to me as president," Romney said. "And their responsibility is to help move that region of the world towards modernity and moderation."